Wednesday, August 28, 2013

8/10. Beverage
I took the kids to a friend's house for a kids craft market and lemonade stand. After they were bored of selling, we put them in front of a movie and had the leftover lemonade with adult additions.

8/11. I Love This
Pajama day! Always the best day of the week.

8/12. Macro

8/13. Fast
He wants to keep up with her so bad. Someday little baby.

8/14. Trash
I'm so glad they were able to find a box big enough to fit those screws in. It was a close call.

8/15. The Best
Blended bananas and strawberries are the best. Davis says so.

8/16. Cooking
It has been very hot this summer, and when we finally had a brief rain break, it just made everything muggy. So after dinner and before bedtime I sat on the balcony and read to cool off.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

8/3. Skyline
We went to a party at my dear friend, Kimberly's house. This is the view she has. I love a good tree-scape skyline.

8/4. Fresh
Because of the party, we all went to bed very late. Of course, I was the only person who didn't manage to sleep in. Lately, I seem to wake up at 6am, no matter what. Sigh.

8/5. Early
I love my pressure canner, but I find it so hard not to pull off the little cap off and let all the steam out early. It takes soooo long to finally be low enough pressure inside for me to be able to open it. Of course, one time where I pulled it off really early and made a bunch of jars explode is enough to change that habit. I still really want to every time, though.

8/6. This Means A Lot To Me
I love seeing Moira's imaginary world. She painted this sun at nature camp, but she didn't tell me which solar system it's from.

8/7. A Sign
I think maybe this box has been used a few times. It needs to be retired as a box, since the weight of all the paper inside it is pushing one of the sides loose.

8/8. Peekaboo
My friend showed my that if you lay the jar on it's side, it's much easier to pack the pickles in tight.

8/9. 2 O'Clock
Moira insisted that she was a mermaid, and this is how mermaids go down stairs. Davis wanted to be a mermaid going down the stairs too, and you can imagine how well that went.

Monday, August 19, 2013

My friend was able to get a canning share through her CSA, and it finally kick started me into canning season. I wasn't feeling particularly excited about canning at all this year. I love having a friend to can with on a regular basis, so now I've even been looking for things to preserve beyond just what comes in her box. What's really funny is that Walker has been making fun of me about how many empty jars I had, but I'm actually a little worried that I won't have enough to make it through the end of the season. I guess we'd better start eating things.
The first thing we did was cherries, and a couple of herb syrups. We made brandied cherries, maraschino cherries, and cherry triple sec jam (this was too sweet, so I'm not linking to a recipe). We also made lavender and mint syrups.
Our second session was easier, because marionberries do not need to be pitted. We made marionberry jam (without a recipe, I have a ratio I use for most jams, and they always end up too sweet when I try to use other people's recipes), and marionberry cordial.
I'm glad we scaled back the plans we were making for when the cucumbers came in. We will do carrots later, possibly when the green beans come in, but originally we were going to try and do 20lbs of cucumbers and some number of carrots and pickled garlic all after dinner. That would have been a disaster. Instead, it was almost too much work, but we got it done. We made garlic dill pickles, spicy pickled garlic (we didn't use this recipe, but it's similar), bread and butter pickles (from Preserving in Today's Kitchen), and sweet and spicy pickles (with an altered version of the bread and butter pickle recipe).
I let JW try out my pressure cooker, and her husband brought me some free little yellow plums. They were a little beat up by the time they got to my house, since they came from his work via bike, but they were perfect for a batch of plum cordial, and some plum sauce
I decided that instead of buying all 4 boxes of tomatoes I want this year at one time, I'd buy them one at a time. With the first box I made salsa...Red enchilada sauce, and pizza sauce. I also made some basil cashew pesto.
I got a box of nectarines today, and I'm hoping I can work on them while Walker (and my canning friend) is out of town, before they go bad. I made bourbon pickled nectarines today and discovered that, just like the internet has promised me, turning the jars upside down does help them seal. I wait until they cool off a little, since flipping boiling hot jars around seems like a bad idea and then I flip the ones that haven't sealed yet.
I did have one mysterious thing happen. When I took this jar out of the water bath, it started spurting bourbon everywhere. I dropped it back in the pot, but it didn't stop until all the liquid was out, and the peaches are all smushed against the bottom. My guess is that I filled it too full of liquid. And then it pressurized? This jar is in my fridge now, and I'm looking forward to trying it with vanilla ice cream tomorrow.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

So this last week, Moira went to Zoo Camp. It was really hard on Davis to have to watch her go to the zoo every day when he didn't get to stay. He started screaming every time we got near my car in protest, which made getting him in the car 4 times a day super fun.
I tried to plan lots of fun things for just us to do together this week, but I think he's just too little to understand why Moira gets to do something he doesn't. He did enjoy having lunch at Google's new cafeteria, going to Country Village, and getting to do new hand rhyme games with me, something we don't do nearly as much as I used to with Moira.
The thing is, I'm not normally that concerned that Davis doesn't get the one on one time with me that Moira did. I figure that's the truth of being a younger sibling. I also think that there's a bug trade off in the benefit he gets from having an exciting third person around to play with. Sure he doesn't get to play "Itsy Bitsy Spider" with me as much, but he and Moira spend hours pretending to be kitties.
Regardless of my logical thoughts on this, it was a little heartbreaking for me when we went to the zoo together. He was SO excited that he got to decide which way to go, and how long to stay somewhere. He got to push all the buttons and lift all the flaps without someone "helping" him, and he loved it.

Moira has been extra tired at the end of the day, which has led to her refusing to let him kiss her goodnight at bedtime. Obviously this makes him very sad, and instead of lying down and nursing he cried and cried "Why? Kiss! Please!" So we stood on the deck off my bedroom and said goodnight to the buses. I remember doing something similar with Moira at this age when she was sad where we would go look at the horses across the street. It's yet another cultural divide between the two of them, country baby, city baby.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

7/27. Black And White
I've been reading a lot lately. But not very fast, so my big stack from the library isn't really shrinking.

7/28. This Is New
While Walker was at a weekend race, I went to play games with some other parents. I kind of liked this game, Ad Astra, even though it's the kind of game I'm the worst at. Probably because it was nice to not have to worry about the kids and just sit still while I played.

7/29. Perspective
At Remlinger Farms! Davis was too nervous to ride most of the rides, but he did enjoy the train and the canoes. He enjoyed the canoes so much that he never wanted to leave.

7/30. Friendship
The first thing Davis wants to do when he wakes up from nap is go find Moira and see what she's doing.

7/31. Workspace
Up this ladder is where I sew, and where my desktop is. Right now, I'm trying to reduce my backlog of quilt projects and watching the show Awkward on AmazonPrime.

8/1. Something That Begins With N
Davis' favorite word is "no." Much to my sadness, he has recently said no to kisses and also no to smiling at the camera. So sad!

8/2. Incomplete
There's a 24 hour a day diner with an extremely retro theme near our house. It looks like an early 60's basement rumpus room. The kids and I went there for lunch, and on the way, Moira asked what a diner was, and I couldn't think how to explain it. She got to watch her milkshake being made.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

7/19. Building
The plywood forms they built to make our concrete walls.

7/20. Hot
Yummy kale for dinner.

7/21. Fave Food
Cheese! Who doesn't love cheese? Except people who are wrong. And vegans.

7/22. Grey
We finally got some more bookshelves for the library, and when I was putting the books away, I found a giant stack of old magazines, mail and random things like this old newspaper. There was an ad for Fredricks & Nelson, and my Mom got nostalgic.

7/23. I Drew This
My printer didn't work right, so I was trying to figure out a way to copy the paper piecing pattern I needed for my round robin. Drawing them individually by hand was NOT the right answer.

7/24. Drained
So, Davis fell into this pool once, and I discovered that the center was so deep, it was over my waist. Since we have a giant pile of dirt in our yard right now, the contractors agreed to drain it for us, so we don't have to worry about small children drowning anymore.

7/25. The Everyday
Oh my goodness, it is so cute to watch Moira and Davis become friends. She always wants to hold his hand, he always wants to play her game. I know this phase won't last, but I do hope they always like each other.